


Here Lies Heaven (just out of touch)

by yaradahl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x23, Demon Dean Winchester, Demon!Dean, Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe in Miracles?, M/M, Post-Episode: s09e23, S9
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 01:05:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1669064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaradahl/pseuds/yaradahl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the season 9 finale Castiel believes Dean to be dead, Sam does not know why his brother is suddenly not dead, the angels want Castiel to led them, and then there's the thing about Dean's soul (well, you know, before he became a demon).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Castiel,” Hannah says, and Cas knows what will follow. 

“They are here to see you,” She steps aside to reveal Rizoel and Rahmiel. He sees their curiosity, as they look around: Castiel’s own heaven, sprung into existence after his short time as a human.

“What is it, brother, sister,” 

He greets them, as he tries to ignore the man behind him, although it is truly a lost cause, when his brother, Rizoel, makes no effort to do the same.   
It is Rhamiel who speaks, carrying the young, blond female that is her vessel with a lightness and care Castiel has seldomly seen in angels: “You showed us the truth, when we were blinded Castiel,” She smiles at him, “Let us follow you.”

“No,” He says, and finally turns his back to them, when he cannot bear it any longer. 

Dean smiles at him, in a way the real Dean would never do: but Castiel does not care, because this Dean is all he has left. An piece of heaven, Castiel thinks somberly, only now truly understanding why heaven might not be the gift for humanity he once thought it was.

“Brother, don’t be foolish. There is not long left, now.” 

Rizoel says, the accent prominent in the African-american male that he wears like a suit, so unlike their sister. It seems an eternity ago, that Castiel used to be amazed at their similarities, Rizoel and Rhamiel, but now they seems different as moon and stars. Castiel does not know when his perspective changed this much, but he has an inkling.

“It does not matter, not anymore. You will do fine without me. You will do better.”

“Your truth may be so, but our truth is different. We need you to lead,” Rhamiel begins to tell him with a calm voice, but Rizoel interrupts: “You cannot let yourself waste away for one man,”

He continues talking, but Castiel no longer listens, only stares into the eyes that could have been Dean’s. They look just like them: He tries to find any mistake, down to the molecular level, but there are none. It frustrates him, particularly so when it is so obviously not Dean. Had he been a human still he would have been fooled, but as an angel he sees there is no soul when he stares into Dean Winchester’s eyes.

His siblings have stopped talking.

“Brother, please,” Rahmiel says quietly, and Castiel finally turns back around to face them, but only to escape the miserable feeling of longing for a man who stands right in front of you. To want something that has been given to you, but is not right.

“What will you have of me? I have nothing to offer you, no matter what you might think.” 

Hannah speaks up from where she has been standing, right in between this heaven and all the others.

“But you do, Castiel, you have so, so much.”

Her eyes are honest, glowing with a sincerity he recalls seeing in Dean’s eyes, whenever he speaks of Sam. He wonders if Dean will feel something is amiss with the Sam in his heaven, as Castiel feels it with Dean in his own heaven. Dean can be peculiarly perspective when it comes to his brother, but even so: This part of heaven is crafted for humans and their happiness, it was never for angels. Never for Castiel, however much he wishes he could believe, as humans do so easily.

No, Castiel is an angel but Dean is not, and Dean will be happy, in his own personal heaven with his own personal Sam, the Impala, his mother, Bobby… He wonders what else is there, in Dean’s heaven, if Dean would mind him there, just for a short visit of course. He knows he cannot, but just to imagine it makes it a little less terrible to know that this Dean is not his Dean.

“Even if I had Hannah, Rizoel is right. I am wasting away as we speak, this grace cannot hold. What good can I do as a leader if you will soon have to elect a new one?” 

“Brother, did you not listen to me?” Rizoel bites before Hannah can answer. “With Metatron in our possession it should not be hard to once again open the gates of Heaven, and with that, win back your grace.” Rizoel steps forward, in front of their sisters, closer to Castiel: “You will be our ruler, brother.”

Castiel shakes his head. “No, I will not. You heard what Metatron said, did you not? I did not do this for heaven, I did it for one man, one single man, all of it for him, and now he is dead. Leave me and let me have some peace!” He’s angry, but only at himself, for choosing what he did. What good has he done in this world, but leave dead angels in his wake? 

What good is free will if this is where it has gotten him?

“Yes, you did,” Rahmiel acknowledges, as one might state that the sky is blue and their father almighty. 

“I rebelled against heaven, Ied our brothers and sisters into battle, I led them die in hundreds, in thousands, because I could not bear to see a man die. Do you not see what has become of me?”

There is silence for a moment, and Castiel looks into his brother’s, Rizoel’s, vessel’s eyes, and think, finally, they will let him die for all the wrong he has done. He sees the disgust in his brother’s eyes, and think that maybe he can finally be the angel he was before he gripped Dean Winchester tight and raised him from perdition, before he called out ‘Dean Winchester is Saved’. Maybe he can finally be an angel again as he used to be, and maybe he can make some amends. 

However, what he thought was to be found in Rizoel’s gaze was only a wish, a silly wish of mercy and for it to just end. He knows that when his sister answers him.

“What I see is love,” She tells him softly, smiling like Nora’s baby and what he saw in Chastity’s soul, her smile as a young girl to her father and her smile, later, to her costumers, as she tried to please them all and make them happy, since she could not be. She reminded him of Dean, in that way.  
“What I see is the reason we can still cherish our fathers creation, what I see,” She pauses, and takes time to look around in this, apart from his fake Dean, empty space. He has nothing without Dean, not even his humanity.

“What I see is a leader who can give us something to cherish, not just something to fight for.”

He closes his eyes shortly, and then opens them again, for no other reason than to feel only somewhat human again. “I no longer have anything I wish to cherish, Rahmiel. One last time, if you would be so kind, then leave me be.” 

Finally he sees dejection in his brother and her. It doesn’t even feel like a victory, when the two of them leave, but he hasn’t expected it do so, hasn’t expected anything to feel good again. Not for him, not anymore. He briefly wonders if they will mention what they have seen to the others, an angel with a piece of heaven. He imagines it in Dean’s voice, and that makes the thought all the more bitter.

“Cas,” And it is the use of the nickname that surprises him at first, but it is not what truly unsettles him. Angels, Dean used to call them dicks, and there is a reason for that that Castiel does not understand until the very moment Hannah says the shortened version of his name.   
Angels do not understand what it means to be a person, to have an identity that goes further than their assigned name and angel of the lord. Angels were never anything other than a force, and Castiel was never anyone before he was separated from the others and singlehandedly found Dean Winchester in hell.

“Cas,” Hannah repeats, interrupting Castiel’s train of thoughts.

“His heaven is here somewhere, isn’t he? The righteous man - Dean, he will come to heaven when the gates open once more.”

“Yes,” He says against his better judgment. ”But I don’t see how that’s of importance.”

“We could find him for you.” She says with certainty in her voice. “You could visit him whenever you want to. They would all help, all of the angels. Imagine all of them, working together. We haven’t had anything to unite us in so long.”

“Heaven is heaven, Hannah. It is sacred for a reason, so that humans can exist in eternal happiness. I would not have though that you, of all, could forget that so easily.”

She looks hurt at his comments, and maybe he was too hard on her. He knows he acted out against her, only because she voiced what he had already been thinking.

“Yes, it is sacred. But Dean would be happy with your visit, so there would be no harm.”

“Yes there would. Dean will soon be happy with his brother, and no angel will intervene in this. Understood?”

“Castiel,” Hannah says slowly, apprehensively. “Brother, how long has it been since you have gazed into Dean Winchester’s soul?”

“Does it matter now?”

Yes, she says, it does. And then she explains.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean wakes up, and the world is all wrong. There’s something nagging him, at the back of his mind, like somebody just told him something very important, but he can’t for the life of him remember - 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dean asks Crowley, because Crowley is hovering over him like some kind of sick and disturbing version of Big Brother,

\- all Dean can think and feel and see is Crowley dead, Sam dead, Cas dead, he wants them to suffer, he wants to be the one to make them suffer. Not because he hates them, far from it. 

The First Blade is already in his hands fortunately, so all he needs to do is reach towards the motherfucker and plug the blade in, easy as pie.  
“Now, now Dean, there is no reason to -“ Crowley starts with a god-awful smirk on his face, Dean just want to rip it off, literally rip it off with his bare hands. Dean just growls at him.

He moves the blade, so close: He can see it, the fear that is Crowley, yet Crowley opens the mouth, and speaks with his meat suits voice. Dean listens, just so he can enjoy it, the rising desperation…

“It’s thrilling, isn’t it?” The demon says, and Dean sees the delight, just as much delight as there’s fear, but. Dean falters, not because of the delight, that’s to be expected in demons, isn’t it? They take so much pleasure in pain that even their own brings Christmas light to their meat suit eyes.

What bothers Dean is that he can see it, all of it, and he’s just realizing now why that’s a problem. Sure, he’s seen their ugly faces before, but he’s no longer in hell. Humans can’t perceive demons, sure, sometimes there’s a little smoke, but not their faces. Yet Crowley’s hideous true self is grinning back at him, behind his human disguise.  
“I realize you are a bit slow squirrel, but even you must see that the truth is starring you right in the face.” And then Crowley laughs, because the bastard is oh-so hilarious.  
He doesn’t need to ask to understand the truth, because now that he’s a bit more aware, he can feel it with an increasing detachment to everything he’s ever known. Nothing really seems important anymore, although he knows it should. Because Crowley is right in one thing, everything is a joke: pain, family, even the Impala seems like a useless object.  
Maybe this realization is what makes him thrust Crowley to the wall, caress the First Blade against the demon’s throat. 

“Now you’re gonna tell me everything.”

*

When Sam finally listens to Crowley (because apparently Sam is summoning Crowley to make a deal), that yes, Dean is alive, no, Sam doesn’t have to sell his soul (somehow it hurts more to know that Sam would do it, than it did to know he wouldn’t give his life for Dean) Dean prays to all of heaven his eyes won’t turn black again. For fuck’s sake, why does it have to be so hard to control?

He doesn’t want to, but he kind of has to feel thankful that it was Crowley who was there when he woke up. Crowley could at least tell him what was happening, why his body felt constricting like a too tight suit and the world around him felt more surreal than any dream he’d ever had. Why he wanted to kill, but even more so, hurt everything around him. And that was why he was glad it had been Crowley there and not Sam; he doesn’t know if he would’ve realized what was happening quickly enough to stop himself; he still doesn’t know if he can, but a selfish part of him (maybe that part of him is larger now that he’s a demon, he doesn’t know, but he thinks he’s always been like this) can’t leave Sam, which is why Sam can’t know.

He doesn’t know where he what he would do, where he would go. He’s certainly not going back to hell, no matter what Crowley is saying. He has never been anything but a brother, a son and a hunter and even though he’s worried as hell that he’ll hurt Sam, he also trust Sam explicitly and a small part of him maybe hopes that Sam will put an end to him, if it comes to that. If he discovers what has become of Dean.  
But for now, Dean won’t tell.

Sam looks amazed, when he sees him. Dean feels sick to his stomach (do demons even get sick? He’s not sure), because Sam shouldn’t look at him like that, not now, but he does and Dean plays along. That’s at least one thing he can still do, demon or not.

“Hey Sammy!” He grins like an idiot, and before he knows it, Sam’s arms are engulfing him like a damn octopus, so hard he can barely breathe, not that it matters anymore.   
The worst thing about the hug isn’t even that Dean thinks his eyes go black again for a second, but that it doesn’t feel like a real hug. It feels like hugging a blow-up sex doll (and yes, Dean knows how that feels) except in this case, he’s the damn doll. Actually he’s not even that, he’s just the puppet master controlling the strings, and Sam’s the one embracing his brother’s corpse. Dean lets go at that, thinks he might lose control if he has to be this close to Sam for just another second. Sam doesn’t seem to notice Dean’s discomfort, but why would he? Dean didn’t even know you could become a demon this way, and he’s the one who got the damn mark to begin with.  
He swears to himself that he’ll never skip the terms and conditions again.

“I can’t believe… I thought I’d lost you.” There’s something vulnerable in Sam’s voice, like there haven’t been since Sam was still a kid, and adored Dean like some kind of invincible superhero.

“Yeah, I just keep on coming back.” He says it like a joke, but he means it like curse. Why can’t he just die and be done with it? He can almost understand where Sam was coming from, when he told Dean he was ready to die, but there are still fundamental differences between the two situations, like the fact that Sam was never a demon, for Christ’s sake.  
Okay, maybe he should be more careful with things like that. Thinking Christo seemingly doesn’t have an effect, but he’s never been one to think before he talks. So maybe he should start doing that. Like, as of right-the-fucking now.

Maybe he should have asked Crowley for a handbook before he ordered him to get to Sam and then get his ever-loving demon-ass out of here, something like ’10 things to remember when you are a demon passing as a human’. 

“But why would Crowley do that, that’s what I just don’t get.” Sammy says, and he has that look like he’s freaking Sherlock Holmes and nothing’s going to stop him from figuring this out. Okay, Dean thinks, definitely something he’s going to have to stop. Normally he would be secretly proud of his little brother for going in full on detective mood, but in this case, surprisingly (since it is Dean’s ass on the line) not so much. 

“Crowley?” He asks like it’s a mystery to him that he didn’t just raise himself from the dead. 

“Yeah,” Sam says, with guilt so thick Dean would maybe have trouble cutting through it with the First Blade (okay, so maybe not because the thing cuts through everything like it’s butter, but it paints a nice picture). “Crowley, he told me he was the one that got you back.”

“Okay, so when did you have time to have a nice chitchat with Crowley, of all people?” Dean feels angry already, though he’s the one who’s fiddling with the truth, lying, deceiving his own brother (letting an angel possess him is just the top of the iceberg.) Maybe it’s not so strange after all, that he ended up a demon, the scum of earth. 

Sam looks like he swallowed a lemon, like he hates what he is about to say: “I couldn’t let you die, Dean! What was I supposed to do?”

“Well, sure as hell not make a deal with the King of Hell, that’s what!”

“You’re such a hypocrite. You let an angel inside of me, without my permission, just so you wouldn’t have to watch me die. You threw away our chance of closing hell once and for all, and now you’re saying I can’t make a deal?”

Dean knows Sam is right in everything he’s saying, yet he’s so angry at his brother, for almost throwing his life away - Dean’s not worth saving, and Sam needs to see that, so he won’t attempt anything stupid, when, if, Sam should discover the truth - which, if Dean’s honest with himself, is bound to happen eventually. Sam is many things, but he’s not stupid.

So Dean’s about to make it into a full blown argument, he’s about to say that Sam was the one who said he wouldn’t do the same thing, when all the electricity goes out with a whoosh, including all of the light, leaving them both in darkness.

“Fuck,” Dean whispers to himself, but apparently not quietly enough, seeing as Sam hears it.

“Yeah,” Sammy says. “I’m surprised it held out this long, though, the technology here is incredible advanced for its time, but still ancient.”

Dean thanks his lucky stars that Sam can’t see his black eyes in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shouldn't be writing this, I have work in the weekend and too many assignments. But here it is! Sorry for any mistakes, I haven't really been proofreading this yet... So you're welcome to comment if you spot any mistakes! (:


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I went back and edited a couple of things in the first chapter, nothing major, just a bit of dialouge in order to get where I wanted with the story... Anyway, finally finished chapter 3!

They still have not found Dean’s heaven. 

It should be curious, considering Castiel has been there before, but nothing surprises him anymore. Of course they cannot find Dean’s heaven; just as they cannot make Metatron tell them how to reverse the spell and open the gates and get Castiel his grace back.

They have tried torture. Castiel had no qualms in that regard, did half of it himself: He will not allow Metatron killed, only because ‘an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind’, because he is afraid that it will once again begin the angels slaughter of one another, but he will be damned if he will not enjoy every single moment he brings pain to Metatron, every time the angel begs Castiel for mercy.

He does that a lot.

After a short while, it’s one of the only things he does. He leads; he asks for Dean, he tortures Metatron. He feels the stolen grace seeping out, slowly but steadily, the more he works: he soldiers on, so to speak. He barely cares anymore. Before he met Dean (it seems forever ago, although it is but a blink of an eye compared to his life before that) he did not care at all, and he hopes his feelings will leave him before his grace does. 

His brothers and sisters deserve some guidance, after all the misery he has caused him. He has tried to do so, before, but he thinks he knows his problem. Humans are his father’s most beloved creatures for a reason: but Castiel was never meant to be a human, only to follow and protect. His failure to realize this, that he is not worthy as a human, is what has caused his mistakes in the past. This time, he vows, it will not.

Rizoel approaches him one day, as he sits with his hands deep inside Metatron’s vessel’s guts. It is not the most painful method he has tried, but he has come to see his sessions with Metatron as a case study. What will do an angel most harm? He is very meticulous in his investigations. 

The other angels have learned to stay away from him when he is with Metatron, so it is a surprise to find Rizoel there with him.  
Rizoel does not speak presumably waiting for Castiel to allow him to do so. That is how all the angels greet Castiel now, Hannah being the exception. Castiel first tried to shake them of the habit, but that has been for nought and he no longer bothers with it.  
Metatron giggles, like a little girl, but Castiel ignores him, as he ignores Rizoel.  
He has to finish first.

“Does it hurt?” He asks the scribe of God.

The scribe of God speaks with God’s voice, is what goes through Castiel’s mind as he waits for an answer.

“Just a tiny bit,” The man says. There is still some part of the angel who cast all the others out of heaven, who told Cas to ‘go and make babies’. An angel who thinks himself funny, Castiel thinks. What a joke.

“Good.” He leans forward to Metatron’s ear and whispers. He knows Rizoel will take that as a hint not to listen, and angels do what they are told.

“You will feel safe and happy, when the joy turns to ashes in your mouth, and you will know the debt is paid.” He leans away from Metatron and stand up, throwing the butterknife in his hand to the ground as he does so. 

“My my, Castiel, you’ve sure learned from the best,” Metratron smiles brightly, sheepishly. Castiel leaves without a word, Rizoel following behind him, out of the tiny cell.  
Castiel knows he will not break yet.

*

“You’ve found a way to reverse it?” There’s dust in Castiel’s mouth, though he knows this is an impossibility. This is heaven, dust does not form anywhere, not even in the mouth of an angel with a stolen grace.

“Yes. We found it in God’s Throne Room,” Rizoel states. Castiel does not let that knowledge linger, does not waste time on questioning it. He would have, not too long ago, he would have asked how and where and why, but it does not concern him. What good has it ever done him to question?  
No, now they will tell him if he needs knowledge of it. 

“And? What do we need?” Maybe it is his imagination, but he feels Rizoel’s stare linger on him a little longer than necessary, before he speaks.

“The counter spell is… unusual.”

“Unusual how?” Castiel asks, impatiently, when Rizoel does not continue immediately.

“A human soul is needed, though since it is a counter spell it will only be borrowed for the time it takes to cast the spell, not kept as your grace currently is. And as the angels were cast to Earth with the grace of an angel loving a human, so is it the soul of a human loving an angel that will reverse it.” He says pointedly and of course Castiel’s mind goes to what Hannah told him in the white room. _Cas, his soul, it lit up in your presence, as the star shone upon Bethlehem. I have never observed such a sight, even with the effect of the Mark had on him._

Even so he says, “There is no such human.”

“We both know that is not true, Castiel.”

“Dean is dead.”

“His soul lives on.”

“His soul who no angel has yet had luck with finding, nor so his heaven.”

Rizoel does not argue further, only continues: “Of course that is not we need. The spell also require, as the life was taken from a nephilim, a life must be returned. The cupid bow is not as literal as the other two. As far as I can tell it has something to do with time, but we will need a prophet to translate it directly.”

Castiel sighs. “There are no more prophets. Not for another generation at least and even then we will need to reactivate them, as Metatron has made sure they will not.” 

Although Metatron had not said anything about how to reverse the spell, he had talked about almost everything else, from the completely irrelevant (-Oh _Cas_ , of course I will tell you everything. See Heisenberg is really covername, his real name is Walter White. Although Jesse Pinkman is a far more likeable character, if you ask me, that is. - Not what I asked, Metatron, he would say, and push the knife further in, and Metatron would scream. Then he would continue talking, addicted to the sound of his own voice, even if it was just him begging and screaming at Castiel to stop. – Wait, that’s right, you already know all that, don’t you? Because I gave you all that information. One of my more creative ideas, if I may say so myself. Of course, it ended up backfiring, but the ending should never subtract from the overall story.) to the less so. (- Stop, stop! – Then tell me what I want to know. – Alright, alright. It had to be you, you see? You were the only one… the only angel who’d be stupid enough to love a human to irrevocably that you’d do anything to earn back their respect. Castiel had electrocuted him a couple of times after that.)

Most importantly, as of right now at least, he’d told how he’d deactivated all of the future prophets, with the power that originated from the tablet. But now that Castiel had broken it, there wasn’t any obvious way to reverse what had been done.

Even Rizoel who, it seemed, could do nothing but reassure Castiel of their eventul success seemed troubled at that. 

“Kevin Tran –“

“Is dead.”

“But that could potentially be reversed, could it not?” 

“We both know that once a prophet is put to rest, so are his abilities, to ensure they are able to rest in peace. Even if were successful in rebuilding Kevin Tran’s body and resurrecting him, perhaps even figuring out how to get him back his powers, it would take too long.”

He does not say too long if you want to prevent me from burning out, but that is highly implied. Although they hardly have any options left, if Metatron continues his unwillingness to cooperate. 

“But it may very well be our best shot,” He starts with a sigh, but before he can continue Rizoel gets a strange “look” on his vessel’s facial features, 

“Castiel, what became of the prophet Chuck Shurley?”


End file.
